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Facebook Photos Lead to Underage Drinking Fines

We've seen wives pose as teens to bust cheating husbands and collections agencies impersonate cute girls to catch debt dodgers, but this is the first time we've ever heard of police using their precious time to send teens friend requests on Facebook just to troll their photos for evidence of underage drinking.

Students at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse have found themselves on the wrong end of a seemingly major sting operation. According to the La Crosse Tribune, at least four students from the school have been invited to court and fined for underage drinking over the past few weeks. The pieces of evidence presented in all the cases have been photos taken from the students' Facebook pages. One of those in trouble, Adam Bauer, told the Tribune that he believes the photos were obtained by police who posed as a "good-looking" 19-year-old girl and sent him a friend request about a month ago. Shortly thereafter Bauer was asked to come into the local police precinct.

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Google's New Permanent Search Sidebar Could Streamline Searches


Despite Google's clean and simple design, users can still feel overwhelmed and frustrated by the freewheeling way in which search results appear on the site. To combat this problem, Marissa Meyer, Google's vice president of search product and user experience, told Mashable that the search giant will soon begin testing a new permanent sidebar on its results page, but only for a small number of users.

We know it's not often that Google changes anything, but before we get too excited, the feature is similar to the "Show options" sidebar. The new version, however, allows you to narrow a search to specific categories, and is simply more attractive. Plus, the sidebar will be, conveniently enough, permanently displayed on the left side of the page.

Overall, people seem glad that Google is adding structure to its unpredictable results. The metaphor Meyer used when speaking with Search Engine Land sums it up nicely: "I've been calling this problem 'user interface jazz.' This result looks this way, and that result looks that way [something much different], and it really does slow you down," she said.

We couldn't agree more. It'll be nice to have a little control when wrestling with mountains of Google results. Just imagine, when planning a trip to Australia, the results won't be plagued with images from that movie with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. We might even -- gasp -- pay for a perk like that. [From: Mashable and Search Engine Land]

Philip's Interactive LED Tattoos Could Be the Future of Body Art


Ah, human progress. It's long been possible to get drunk with your friends and make a permanent mistake on your body on spring break in Mexico, but soon you'll be able to do it electronically, too. That's right, we are entering the era of the LED tattoo.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have been developing micro-thin, flexible, silicon electronics that have already been successfully implanted under the skin of mice without any harm. These devices can conform to the body's shape without causing any irritation or interfering with its normal physiological processes. (The silk is eventually dissolved and absorbed by the body.)

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Man's Coffee Cup Twitter Account Restores Faith in Humanity

Every generation laments the passing of those utopian good-ole days when people apparently always treated one another with respect and compassion. The Internet has only exacerbated those grumblings, as people constantly bemoan living in an instantly gratified society with increasingly narcissistic attitudes.

But, at least one crusader is using a so-called narcissistic and shallow avenue to disprove those Information Age haters. The RoofCoffeeCup Twitter account is attempting to prove that people really do care about one another, or, at least, one another's coffee. According to Boing Boing, a guy known as GitEmSteveDave has magnetically attached a Starbuck's coffee cup to the roof of his car and tweets about people's reactions to the precarious cup in peril.

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Sunday's Engadget Show Features Joystiq, HTC's Drew Bamford

Gadget and gaming fans are in for a treat at this Sunday's Engadget Show taping. Our friend Chris Grant, Editor-in-chief of Joystiq, joins the Engadget crew for a special gaming-focused roundtable. Plus, for you mobile interface junkies, HTC's Drew Bamford will be there as well. Plus, a very lucky audience member will go home with a 'Modern Warfare 2' Xbox 360 bundle. If you're in the New York area this weekend, head on down to the Tishman Auditorium at Parsons The New School for Design for the free event. Doors open tomorrow at 4:30PM, show starts at 5:00PM.

Best of the Rest: Skateboarding Dog Tries 'Tony Hawk,' Muji Meets Lego

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. Tillman the Skateboarding Dog is a skating celeb, so it makes sense that he (or one of his bulldog buds) gets to try out the new Tony Hawk game, which comes with a ...

N.Y. State Government to Interrupt Gaming With Emergency Bulletins

The Internet turned the big 4-0 this year, and the commercially available wireless phone celebrated its own quarter-century milestone. After all of that time, it seems that state and national governments are finally ready to accept the crazy notion that both modes of communication can be used to instantly disseminate urgent information during times of strife. Japan introduced a cell phone ...

Webby Awards Lists the Millennium's Top 10 Web Moments

With the decade coming to a close in less than two months, expect to see plenty of "Best of" lists. It's awful fun to think back on marquee moments from years past, especially when those moments occurred on our beloved Internet. Plus, it's shocking to recall just how much the Web has changed since the start of the millennium. In that spirit, the Webby Awards has released its list of "The Ten Most ...

Scientists Find RFID 'Fingerprint' That Could Prevent Counterfeiting

Radio frequency identification tags (RFID), which appear in items like credit cards and passports, have long been susceptible to hackers looking to steal personal information. Still, RFID tags are used in many ways -- from tracking a shipment of clothes to automatically opening a doggie door. But a breakthrough from a group of University of Arkansas scientists might just ease the minds of those ...

Depressed Woman's Facebook Pics Ruin Her Insurance Benefits

It seems that placing privacy settings on your social networking profile isn't enough to keep snoops away. Nathalie Blanchard, of Quebec, Canada, learned that lesson when her long-term, sick-leave benefits were stripped from her because of photos on her Facebook account. For the past year and a half, Blanchard had been on leave from her job at IBM as the result of being diagnosed with serious ...

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